London Stansted Airport Meet the Buyers beats all records with £200 million worth of contracts up for grabs for local businesses

London Stansted Airport’s 17th annual Meet the Buyers event welcomed nearly 300 businesses from across the East of England and London, all eager to showcase their products and services and potentially secure new business deals with some of the region’s biggest organisations.

The event, organised by London Stansted Airport, the Business and Enterprise Group and Bishop’s Stortford firm Marketing Kinetics, attracted a record-breaking 46 private and public sector buyers with a combined purchasing power of £200 million in potential new sales and contracts.

Speaking ahead of the flagship supply chain event at a business leaders breakfast, London Stansted’s new Chief Operating Officer, Brad Miller, said:

“London Stansted Meet the Buyers has over the last 17 years become a flagship event in the local and regional business calendar. This year is no exception with a record-breaking number of buyers in attendance representing a wide range of organisations including Essex County Council, BEUMER Group, National Express, the NHS, the University of Essex, VolkerFitzpatrick and London Stansted Airport.

“London Stansted is a successful and growing airport and we have exciting plans to redevelop our facilities to cater for increasing passenger numbers and to improve the airport experience. We’re also committed to working in partnership with our local community and are keen to ensure that local businesses can share in the success of this exciting new chapter in Stansted’s development.

“This is where Meet the Buyers can really help by connecting buyers with suppliers in a convenient and time efficient way and creating a unique opportunity to generate new business.

“It is estimated that last year’s event alone generated £4.7 million in new sales for local businesses. We are very proud of this achievement and this year we’re focusing on ensuring that suppliers get to meet as wide a range of businesses as possible, including our procurement team and key suppliers, who procure a significant number of services at the airport.”

Little Hadham marketing agency, Ignition, was just one of the many local businesses in attendance. Client Engagement Manager, Gary Rowntree, said:

“We work with big companies around the globe but today’s Meet the Buyers has been a great opportunity to showcase our work to those businesses on our doorstep.”

Also at the event was Sarah Smith, Contracts Officer at Essex County Fire & Rescue Service, who commented:

“Meet the Buyers gives local companies a fantastic platform to pitch their product or services directly to a host of major buyers like ourselves.”

Also speaking at the event was the airport’s Transformation Director, Paul Willis, who updated delegates about the airport’s multi-million pound transformation plans.

“Over the next five years we have committed to a significant investment programme which will see the biggest upgrade in passenger facilities at the airport since the new terminal opened in 1991. As part of the plans we will be constructing a new £130 million arrivals building, revamping our existing terminal and enhancing passenger services to allow the airport to handle more than 35 million passengers a year.

“We want to enable local firms to get involved in this exciting phase of the airport’s development, so early next year we will also host a special Meet the Buyers to share more details about the opportunities for businesses to be part of the airport’s supply chain.”